I wasn't ready
by QuibblerQuirk
Summary: Snarky cousin, confused Rose, babbling Scorpius and a difficult decision.


It was 2am in the morning and I was sitting on my bathroom floor. I looked around and can't help seeing my razors, the sharp ends of the shower, the rusty end of the tap that I already cut myself twice in. This was no place for anyone new except for a still confused, tad awkward twenty two year old me. My hands were shaking slightly and I felt really queasy.

There was a knock at my bathroom door.

"Rose?", she called loudly. "You in here?"

I sighed.

"Hey Lily. Thanks for coming."

"You owe me an ice cream at Fortescue's, remember. It's two am and I did not bring home my date. He wasn't that funny, but man, was he hot. I gave up sex for you and that's saying something. Although, I should have probably just stayed in and watched tv with Pizza and some good ol' firewhiskey. Either way, my Saturday night was supposed to be goddamn amazing and here I am, all sooty from your stupid fireplace. I don't even like using floo a lot. ", Lily said, exasperatedly.

"So. You said you wanted to talk about something important." , she said softly.

I took a deep breath in.

"I'm pregnant. I checked thrice and the potion never lies. "

"That rhymes." she snorted immediately. "Wait, what? Oh Rose, love, when did this happen? ", she asked, clearly stumped.

"One night stand. God, I am so stupid. It was six weeks ago and I forgot about it, really. "

"Well, whose is it?"

I paused for a couple of moments. The street light shimmered yellow and there was a slight drizzle outside, slowly pattering on my window.

"Scorpius Malfoy."

Lily thought for a while.

"Oh. I mean, he's kind of hot. But it'll be creepy if the baby inherited his silver blonde and your freckles. I mean, HA."

Despite myself, I snorted a bit. Lily was my best friend after all and I know her all too well to know that she will be the last one to become a nervous wreck and cry and thus, make me panic, become a nervous wreck and cry.

A little introduction is due here, I suppose. The bathroom we both sat in, no, correction: laughed on the floor, because Lily thought it was funny to tickle me and shout "Mommy can I pee on you" in a sing song voice, is pretty tiny. Just like my house. The rent was too high but the house, a little too shabby. But I had a job I really like. You see, I was a curse breaker at Gringotts. Arithmancy was the one subject I really liked and despite the danger of my job, I did come around to like the thrill of it. Lily and me are practically inseperable. She worked at Eeylop's, she loved animals but the record maintenance work she was positioned in, not so much. She was vivacious, unabashedly sexual and was a firecracker. She always stood up for the things she believed in and was unafraid to use her expert hexes and swift kicks to the balls at lewd comments and blatant sexism. True story : Derek Williams started getting too handsy after repeatedely being turned down by Lils and he ended up at 's for a month, went back to live with his mother, lost his job and well, let's just say he isn't the happiest man after the chain of events. She had organized protests, brought down a company by one single strongly worded article on equal pay for all genders and helped in the setting up of the first gay bar in the Wizarding world.

I, on the other hand, am not too quiet myself. I was not the best, but was certainly above average with great scores at arithmancy in Hogwarts. It was only natural that I took up curse breaking. I absolutely loved it. I worked extra hard and I may not have had a ten year plan at hand, but I definitely wanted to save up and get out of the stupid apartment. I wanted to move someplace nicer, travel a little bit and move up ranks in my job. I really had been meaning to take up a course on ancient runes and vedic math that I'd been putting off for a year already. I wanted to do a thousand things, explore myself and learn what I really want to do and who I really want to be. But with the baby, blimey, I did not know.

I was barely an adult myself. I'd been maturing after Hogwarts, but Merlin, me, James, Fred and Lily once put on firecracker suits, jumped off the Astronomy Tower and tried to conjure a giant quilt bed before we fell. Let's just say, thank the lords it worked. I had set more things on fire that I can count, and that included, almost Hugo once. I drank too much, skipped classes to throw stones at the giant squid, had my fairshare of heartbreaks and breaking hearts and school was the most fun journey of my life. I loved my family and we got together every month or so, with Grandma's most delicious cooking and its aroma drowning out our silly fights and loud laughter. My tight knit, albeit too large family was always my constant support system. Maybe they would have been a gigantic help to raise a kid despite three busy lives and it would have worked out fine, but why did my throat always constrict and I felt dizzy at the thought of a baby?

Good lord, I did not want to dwell on that.

So. I was pretty ambitious but confused too. I loved to write, occasionally. A little bit of poetry here and there, an article or two for aunt Ginny's magazine, and I liked to act and dabble with theatre occasionally. I struggled with body image for the first few years at school, but slowly learned to own it and not give a fuck. Even when the school published "Oops! Daughter of Golden trio's beloved Ron and Hermione has HUGE thighs and a bad fashion sense!", I combated with pushing Eloise Parkinson, a first class bully and author of above mentioned, down the toilet, with Myrtle's content giggles to complete the fiesta. You could say I had spunk. But all that courage seemed to have vanished with the new news in the picture. I was just scared and not much else.

I drew in my breath. I had to tell her the other big news I had received two days prior. Oh, the irony of it all because as they say, time is a bloody arsehole.

"Lils, I got it." I started to sob slightly, " I got the promotion letter just two days ago and I leave for Egypt in ten days. "

"Oh Rose. You have been wanting it so badly. Love, what are you going to do now?" Lily looked so sorry and I must have looked pitiful and that made me sob more violently.

I had really wanted to go easy on the romance and focus on getting that promotion at work.

But guess not. Not when I had stupidly made out with Malfoy at the back of the new club and gotten so inebriated, that I did it with him. On his couch where we apparated back to. And his bed. And on his wall. And on the kitchen counter top. Merlin, that day, though unexpected, was bloody amazing. I'd never been kissed like that before and I did not know if it was the alcohol, but his perfectly toned abs, grey eyes that seemed to smolder 90% of the time he talked and his mouth, oh so perfect and so, I wasn't gonna lie, that bloke was hot. I did not know Malfoy well in school. He hung out with Albus a lot, so I did see him during summer break at the Potters' and sometimes when he joined in our pranks, or when I faced Slytherin off in Quidditch. But I was never close to him, though I found him to be a good eye candy. So it was naturally a surprise when he nervously asked me if we could dance at the new club near Hogsmeade, where I had been stood up by my date. It had been my first date in months, so I guess I was not in my best mood and I agreed. We had a fun time until we started drinking. It became fun-er. One glass of fire whiskey turned to three, then to five and then to too drunk to even dance without tying my legs in a ribbon. We did talk a lot though I remember some of it only. I knew that he had been trying to become an Auror and that he was leaving London for his Auror training in two months' time and that he had been really proud of it. He had been really charming and though, initially awkward, we had found common things to talk to. I do vaguely remember telling him that his butt was cute repeatedly, like over a hundred times and that he had laughed a lot when he saw my underwear had "Holds a hot cauldron of love" on it. Hey, I had bought it on a dare from Lily years ago and well, it was comfortable.

But it wasn't suppose to come back to bite me in my arse. The whole "uhhhh we woke up naked in your bed together" incident. But I had been glad it was mutual. We had talked over breakfast that I wasn't looking for a relationship and that date I was supposed to go on was a bad mistake I agreed upon on the last minute. He had to leave for his training anyway and well, everything was good. Right?

Wrong.

So here I was, not ready for a baby. I did not feel like anything I was supposed feel. Excited, nervous and most of all, like I could get through this and that it is only right if I keep it. I did not feel that way at all and that's why I was freaking out. Bollocks.

"You're the biggest bloody idiot I know for not performing the one spell you know better that even lumos. Merlin, Rose, you should know better."

"I asked him to do it and I don't know, maybe we were too sloshed to remember. Most of the night is a haze, Lils. "

"So. I've got to ask you the most important question now."

She looked me straight in the eye.

"Was the sex hot? "

Despite myself, I cracked up. "Yeah, as far as I remember. Hot damn. So good. Before this, I thought whenever he comes back from his training for a break, we could have a little fuck buddy thing going on. Until, well, this. "

"You're one naughty redhead, Rose.", she punched me in the arm playfully.

"So. Seriously though. Have you told him yet? ", Lily asked

"Yeah. He should come anytime now. "

As luck would have it, at the exact moment, he got out of the fireplace.

He looked like a complete wreck. "Rose, look, I am so sorry, I don't even know what I am going to do, I mean- what we are going to do. I support all of your decisions. I mean, it's in your hands. I-god I forgot the ring and should I propose? Should we marry? Good Lord, I should talk less, right? Oh was it supposed to be a surprise and maybe I should go on one knee now. Champagne? Roses? Although, alcohol is not the best idea for now considering that you're pregnant, gosh, I am so bloody stupid and rose, well, your name's Rose and bringing you roses will be the most cliched thing to do, unless of course you like it and wel-"

He babbled on for five more minutes, until, Lily kicked him to shut him up.

"Do you wanna do this?", I asked. "Not the marriage, god, we are not stuck in stupid old times. And I do not want to marry, not now anyway.", I shrugged, "I cannot marry you, Scorpius."

"Okay." He sighed. "Look, Rose, I don't know what to say. My career's just starting to take off and I have barely any money and my apartment's tiny and I share it with three other people. And I am not big on commitment. I had a great time with you that day, but, I've been in two long relationships only till now and I am not yet over it. I did not want to get into anything serious too because I'm going away for two years for training. But a baby changes things I guess. So there's the facts. My mom's sick and Dad's cold and distant and they're hardly the ideal couple to take care of baby. And yours, well, I am just going to go ahead and guess that they're really professional people with such busy lives that I don't see how a baby is going to fit in there. So. There's the facts. You can hit me now for being inconsiderate if you feel so. Merlin, I did sound like a complete prat for a minute there, didn't I? I am really very sorry. But I want you to know that I support you through and through. Whatever it is, I can quit and take up another job and baby proof my apartment or something. I should stop freaking out right about now. Ugh." , he completed.

"I'm not ready too. I just got my biggest promotion yet and it's not right to bring up a baby when I am not sure I can give my hundred percent for it. I am not emotionally and mentally prepared for it."

"So? "

"Yeah. ", I replied.

"So, I'll pick you up tomorrow, Rose and we can go to the Healer together. ", Lily said, hugging me.

"Should I come too? ", asked Scorpius nervously.

"It's alright. ", I smiled.

"You should get back to your chudley cannon bedsheets to curl into. Oh that's after playing with your toys, right? ", I smirked.

"Hey, those are action figurines! How do you even remember that and not the fact that we didn't do the spell! I mean- I did not mean it like that.." He tensed up.

"It's okay. ", I laughed, "...Doll guy".

"Oh shut up. ", he said, clearly taking offense, albeit playfully.

"Okay. I am gonna go back. Just know that you can reach out to me for anything. I'm glad we could sort this out like adults. Remember, I am only one floo away and I'll always be there, no matter what."

"Goodbye, Scorpius. "

"Goodbye, Rose. "

I did wake up the next morning in not the chirpiest of moods, but after the trip to the healer and buying Lily a truckload of Icecream , I felt relieved.

I did the right thing.

I hope.


End file.
